Setsuled's Journal

I am now camped a day's journey on Warg-back north of Seregost, and I am accompanied by a young Orc named Zogulth, who I can now hear snoring from where he sleeps on the opposite side of the fire. Not yet in his seventeenth year, and already he shows the bloodlust tempered by cunning that marks a fine chieftain six years his senior. Overhearing my aims in the mess hall, Zogulth offered to accompany me north, and his sincerity of manner fills me with a cautious optimism for Mordor.

I wandered the cold dungeons of Seregost before leaving, passing torchlight over cobwebbed racks, Scavenger's Daughters, cat's paws, pears, and thumbscrews. I thought of all the time the Grey Girl Beast and I could have spent together. In my almost melancholic musing over the marvellous old devices, I thought I should not like to have permanently damaged the Girl Beast. I think, in time, a shield maiden such as her would find the sting of the lash something intimate with the core of her being. For surely, such women pursue war because they want men to hurt them. And I would have done so with a truly deep respect for her insidious mind.

Zogulth and I departed Seregost at dawn and, by the sure-footed speed of our Wargs, quickly made our way through the mountains, and found ourselves on the hard, grey old dirt of Gorgoroth. The flattened layers of ash on the ground is testament to a time when Orodruin shielded us from the burning white of daylight. I wonder now if Kamul can truly reignite the flames of the mountain. If this is truly something an Easterling can do. Of course, if it is true what I hear about the identity of the one he serves, then we may yet see a time of greater darkness than even Sauron himself managed at the height of his powers.

But as we are now . . . I let it be known that I offer bounty on the Grey Girl Beast's head, and I hope that it is believed that I can provide such a reward as I've offered. I've told the Crebain, but I have no confidence in their ability to spread word any more than I am confident in their ability to bring word to Kamul. I must build might from the ground up, from raw muscle and steel. This is the way of Mordor, this is the way of strength. And this is what Rohan, what the "free peoples" do not understand. In Mordor, the powerful may become more powerful simply by killing those who stand in their way. And there is no reason to fear death unless one is weak, and such creatures deserve death as their existence is a pathetic thing. I shall wring a great power from Mordor, worthy of the vision of Morgoth himself. It shall be through fire, and it shall be through pain.

I bade a smith at Seregost to fashion me a new leg of rigid steel. With it, I shall stamp to meat the soft flesh of the world.